National Review: “Animal Welfare is a Conservative Issue”

In a recent op-ed published in political outlet National Review, former Republican Senate staffer John Connor Cleveland told fellow conservatives that “animal welfare is a fundamentally conservative cause.” Republican values revolve around minimized government interventions, and Cleveland expressed surprise at Republican support of the big government actions such as subsidizing agribusiness and instituting check-off programs—or marketing funds collected from single commodity producers behind campaigns such as “Got Milk?” and “Pork. It’s What’s for Dinner.” As defenders of the Constitution, Cleveland points out that Republican states should be staunchly against ag-gag laws, which is not the case. Instead, “farm animals are under constant assault by legislators who would rather curb human freedoms than stand up to bureaucrats more concerned with money than mercy,” Cleveland said. Cleveland ended with the statement that “preventing cruelty to animals is philosophically consistent with the economic and moral principles of conservatism” and called upon readers to “abolish the partisan divide when it comes to animal protection.”